Gen X Today: Latchkey to Life360

Were our parents negligent, or are we completely unhinged? Dwayne and Heather look back at growing up as Gen X latchkey kids, back when you had a house key on a shoelace, after-school reruns, homemade bike ramps, and one rule: be home when the streetlights come on. Then they turn the question on themselves. How did the most unsupervised generation in modern history become some of the most watchful parents?

The conversation covers free-range parenting vs. helicopter parenting, stranger danger and the 24-hour news cycle, play dates and travel sports, and the growing push for Reasonable Childhood Independence laws across the U.S.

They also share what childhood independence looks like from their home in Germany, where kids ride public buses on their own and the playgrounds still look like they came straight out of 1978. (Check out the photo of the old-school climbing net just down the street from them on their website. Your ten-year-old self would have lived on that thing.)

Grab your house key and a dime for the payphone. And tell us: what was the most free-range thing your parents ever let you do?

Links mentioned in this episode

Let Grow: https://letgrow.org

Let Grow State Policy Maps: https://letgrow.org/state

Free-Range Kids (Lenore Skenazy): https://www.freerangekids.com

American Bar Association, "Where Is It Safe and Legal to Give Children Reasonable Independence?": https://www.americanbar.org/groups/litigation/resources/newsletters/childrens-rights/where-it-safe-legal-give-children-reasonable-independence/